We're Family
by Akenomyosei
Summary: They saw behind the façade, the lies, the anger, and they knew just how to cure it. They knew how to make each other happy. After all, no one knows you like your family. A series of one shots.


_Promise_

They promised.

Their training was complete, they were united once again at the promised place, everything was right.

They knew not to make any stupid mistakes, they were in the big leagues now. One mistake could be, no, it would be deadly.

Their skills had improved so much in only two years. Their new attacks were awesome, their forms were sharp. Nothing could stand in their way, especially now that they were together.

He grinned as he watched them take down foes individually, the ones that two years ago, would have required a group effort to defeat.

"They were strong, they could handle themselves." And he beamed with pride at the thought.

He let them choose their own battles like always, unconcerned when the fight escalated and more and more people tried to fight off the crew.

He laughed and toyed with his enemies, earning exasperated sighs from most of the crew, just a normal day for the Straw Hat Pirates.

The enemies grew tired and they easily outnumbered the remaining handful of fighters by the time Franky announced that the Coup de Burst was ready. Luffy pouted, realizing that they had to ditch their new sparing partners, but an angry Nami was scary, so he guessed that there would always be other opportunities.

The retreating forms of his crewmates were getting farther and farther away. He broke into a sprint to catch up.

He didn't know how or why, but for some reason his hat flew off his head. Skidding to a stop, he turned to pick it up, only to realize that there was someone approaching him from behind, and fast. He paused in his half bent over state, his had outstretched to pick up his hat.

His head whipped around to see hands pushing him down. He growled angrily on the ground, trying to orientate himself, to catch a glimpse of his attacker.

He felt warm water spray his face, instinctually he covered his eye to keep the water out of them, was it raining? It didn't make sense, if it were raining, then the air would get colder. So why did it feel like it was on fire?

He looked up to see Zoro. Cool, strong, bleeding Zoro, hovering over his small form. A pained expression graced the usually stoic face.

Panic, fear, dread, flashed through the young captain as he moved his wide eyes down his swordsman's body.

His breathing hitched and his body began to tremble in disbelief.

Behind his swordsman, his crewmate, his loved one, stood _that_ man tall and proud. There was a magma fist through Zoro's chest._ There was a magma fist through Zoro's chest!_

He tried to move forward, to catch his falling companion when the arm forcefully left his chest, yet he just sat there trembling in place. He couldn't move, it hurt to breath.

In the distance, he heard the angry, sad, panicked shouts of his crew. That man didn't even glance down at the boy as he turned to their direction.

He sat there, unable to move, unable to speak, as he watched his crew get slaughtered.

Everything seemed to slow down, he couldn't hear anything but his own ragged breathing. Hot streams of tears rush down his face.

"They were strong, they could handle themselves. _They wouldn't die_." They all assured him that with such vigor and confidence that he didn't even cringe at the all too familiar words Ace said to him when they were younger.

And now they laid sprawled out around him, unbreathing and unmoving.

They promised.

They promised him that they wouldn't die.

He screamed, it echoed around the surrounding area. It was the only thing he could do.

* * *

"Oi, Luffy, wake up already!"

"Luffy?"

"Luffy-san?"

"Come on shit captain, you're scaring the ladies!"

Flailing limbs and choked shouts abruptly calmed down as he glanced around the men's cabin fearfully. His pounding heart rung in his ears and his trembling body shook. He was on the floor, his bed sheets were tangled around him, and they had a slight damp spot on them. Was he crying? A shaky hand came up to his face and he quickly brushed away the tears that streaked his face.

His breathing slowed and the trembling nearly stopped as he began to calm down. He could hear the faint voices of his crew. His crew! His wonderful, funny, _alive_ family!

He stared at them for a while, his dazed eyes were having trouble comprehending what was in front of him. His breathing became irregular once again, his body shook and new tears fell.

"Oi-oi Luffy, what's wrong with you?"

"Y-y-yah, why are you crying?"

They shifted uncomfortably in their captain's presence. Unsure of what to do, they had never seen him in such distress.

It had been a minute now and he still continued to blubber and bawl, it was getting extremely uncomfortable. They had to try to do something, anything, to get their captain to stop.

They were getting desperate, nothing was working. Not even the cheery, upbeat tune Brook had tried playing, or the promise of a dinner part 6 from Sanji. The nervous empty threats they made fell on deaths ears, drowned out by the choked sobs the boy made.

Their valiant act of normalcy had failed, they would have to try something else, something they weren't used to doing. But it was their only hope and he was starting to become more hysteric each passing second.

"YOU WE'ER ALL DEAD! A-A-AND HE KILLED YOU, AND-AND-And-and I couldn't do anything…and-and-" His voice trailed off at the end when his crew moved toward him.

Zoro moved first, he sat down next to the trembling boy and moved him into his lap, awkwardly hugging his shaking body in an effort, a plea, to get him to stop. The crew followed their swordsman, huddling around him and their captain. He blinked and looked around to see that they were really alive and well.

The last of his tears dried and he allowed his body to relax, he was still slightly rambling. The crew drew closer to his form and whispered determined promises that they were OK, they poked and rubbed and ruffled his body and hair in an effort to get him to finally stop, to go back to sleep. It worked almost instantaneously, they all exhaled a sigh they didn't remember holding.

Their captain drifted off into a light sleep. The crew soon followed.

* * *

**~Done**

**This is my first time writing a crying Luffy, I hope I didn't make him or the crew out of character. Also, if the dream sequence kind of seemed random, well it was a dream after all. That's my logic and I'm sticking to it.**

**This was kind of difficult for me to write since I think that the scenario itself isn't too plausible just on its own. From what I've seen, Luffy has never really gotten nightmares before, especially ones as bad as his crew dying in front of him. **

**But from what I've read on this site, it's a popular scenario to write about. So I figured I'd give it a shot.**

**Maybe I'll come up with a prologue for this one day. As a way to make this scenario appear more realistic, or more realistic to me anyway.**

**According to my psychology teacher, he said that we dream about things because something triggers it to happen when we're awake. So in other words, we wouldn't just dream about… well I don't know, maybe our entire crew dying randomly. No, something would have had to happen for Luffy to get that though in his head before he went to bed.**

**So until I figure something out, let's just say that something kind of scared Luffy before he went to bed that night.**

**Speaking of beds, it's currently 1:30 AM and I think I should start getting in mine soon…**

**Thank you for reading. I hope you have a wonderful day/night. Bye~**


End file.
